The months of Ignius were fading fast and it could be felt in the air as a slight coolness would breeze through every so often in the area. Then again, a hot day in the cemetery seemed a bit taboo, especially for this one Nemesis found himself in. It hadn’t been so long ago that he had considered that it would have been his resting place one day, back when he had nothing but the clothes on his back. Now? He had a trading empire, a small but nearly close knitted family and now a taste of power that he had craved for eons. It did nothing to fool him into believing that he was invincible by any means. In fact, it made him even more concerned about his mortality than it ever had prior. He knew of enough individuals that carried the belief that they were untouchable only to eventually fall and fade into the pages of history. Would that be him one day? To fall and be taken away from his loved ones? Every tombstone that surrounded him carried a unique story that went now without their narrators. The vaewolf pondered when the time would come when his story was finished as well.

He crept about the grounds, studying a few of the headstones. Perhaps, some of them had been his victims at one point or another. And now they laided cold in the dirt and him walking amongst them as if they were not there.

“Truly tragic, isn’t it?”, a voice called out, causing him to halt.

It was a well too familiar voice that had been plaguing him as of late and he didn’t bother to turn around to see the woman garbed in a slim black dress. A fair headed woman with eyes that were akin to a twin set of suns that bore into his very spirit. A parasol drew high above her, lightly twisting with her grip as she looked on in amusement. Whether a fragment of his imagination, a play on his memory or if she was a ghost haunting him remained to be seen, but what could not be denied was that he grew tired of dealing with his former master and lover. “Must you come here of all places? No wait, it’s probably the best place for you, my dearest. You should go back to that eternal rest you were in.”

“But Nemesis, why would I do that?”, she cooed, drawing onto him and snaked an arm around his waist. “I have risen from the dead before, why couldn’t I do it now?”

“Point taken, but I fear that I’ve grown bored of our little game. What is it that you seek?”, he demanded, his voice on the edge of anger. Meanwhile, his companion smirked and revealed the faintest glimpse of fangs before releasing and walking around to his front. “What I want is to see the world unravel..”

“What you want is to do nothing more than what you’ve tried back when you ascended, Azrail. I have learned a lot of things from you, including trying not to move the sun. You wish for something that is impossible; there are too many things here that would deter that. And frankly, I am no longer interested in fulfilling the whims of the dead.”

The woman’s expression changed rapidly to coy to seething anger in a matter of seconds before it was lifted and she turned to walk away from him. “You know that I will never stop until you see things my way, love.”

“And what greater punishment than that could there be? Hell isn’t something I’m afraid”, he retorted.

“No, it’s dying that frightens the fear god,'' she replied before disappearing from his sight. For all other parties, it would have appeared that Nemesis had simply stood there and conversated with himself, but he knew that she would come back. With a stony look, he continued onward until he reached a mausoleum and thought for one moment that the name for it said “Volkov.” After he blinked and read it again, it said “Viktor” instead.

Perhaps he was afraid to die after all.

"Alright, let's try this again. The goal today is to create as much scatter of the particulates within the shortest amount of time while maintaining cloud density for maximum effectiveness." The Perditi Cemetery was awfully quiet today, without the usual masses of undead roaming like golems with broken compasses. Maybe it was due to the goddess of death joining the dearly departed. This was the first time she had been back here in a very long time, but it was an important one. Back when she was dropped into this world, green and still trying to get her bearings, she made a wrong turn off faulty directions ending up here instead of Adeluna City. In this waterlogged mire she had her first encounter with Death, or Dalanesca, as she'd be remembered now. It had been foggier and more eerie then, with paranoia running rampant in her brain with every sound she heard. In contrast, the air seemed clearer and there was a bit of sun creeping through the gloom. A lot had happened recently. Angela almost died, Dalanesca's body went on a rampage, and finally Angela dealt the killing blow to put her out of her misery. The funeral was held, people came, then they left. Things went back to how they were, more or less. At least that's what she tried to tell herself. 

For a long time she had a sneaking suspicion that something terribly, awfully, horribly dreadful was going to happen and they were just seeing the prelude. Invisible wheels had already been set into motion, and even with that eldritch entity losing its meat puppet things were only going to move quicker. They could not grasp the form of what they were facing. There was no way to know what to expect. No matter how hard she tried to delude herself there remained a single overwhelming voice screaming that the end was nigh and they were on an inevitable path of total annihilation. Everything was hopeless! Resistance was futile! No matter how they struggled it would all collapse in upon itself and the very belief of salvation was utter vanity! 

For someone like Nemesis she would be easy to spot even if she wasn't visible thanks to the ever-present paranoia that gnawed at her very consciousness. And despite her expectations of despairing ruin, here she was testing new prototypes to see how well they worked outside a controlled environment. "That's no good, cloud density turns weak in the presence of air flow. Concentration of the powder must be increased to compensate for possible weather conditions. Blast radius needs a more forceful expulsion." The deity muttered to herself, speaking to an enhanced version of a wayfinder's widget. Tucking it back into her bag she flung another sphere-like object at a tree, watching it shatter violently with shards littering the ground upon impact. A bluish cloud was released and quickly dissipated while the surrounding area was tinged in the same color. 

"…Still not good enough. I need more firepower. The canister model provides the fastest release at the cost of affecting less surface area." She was running out of options. Having thought herself into a corner she was now stuck in a rut. Climbing onto one of the fully weathered tombstones she sat cross-legged, putting her head between her hands while staring at the ground. "If there's a will, there's a way…as the saying goes. 'Will' is present, now if only the way would show up." How much sand did they have in the hourglass before the next disaster came?

Dealing with the ghost of his past was getting far too tiresome for Nemesis’ liking. On and off, she would appear and only cause his being to question why Azrail had come back to haunt him. Eons passed by and it wasn’t until now that he had to worry. Eventually, he would have to search for a way to finally snuff out the remainder of her memory from his mind and eyes. Fortunately, there was a distraction not too far from him, one that caused him to cease movement again once he heard a rather loud disturbance within the cemetery.

“What now?”, he lashed out before heading towards the source’s direction. The further he went on, the more he took notice of the strange coloring that that took to it. In a place that was to be the resting place of many, someone or something had defiled it to a degree, though it wasn’t much of a concern to the God for he was neither Life or Death.

Not too long into his prowling would he find another person sitting upon a headstone. Her presence felt familiar but he couldn’t put a finger on why. But she seemed unfazed by the explosion of color that was around them and was basically in the middle of this mess so he assumed that she knew of something if not the entire source of this. Nemesis’ first thoughts were to leave the woman be and continue on his merry way; unfortunately, that would mean another possible visit from his ghastly tormentor.

His decision wasn’t a long one.

“That certainly can’t be a comfortable seat, miss.” He slowly inched towards her; there was still some air about her that he couldn’t understand and would be cautious of until it was lifted. Meanwhile, he would keep up with the friendly mask for it was his mind that held an appetite for the moment, not his stomach. “Would you happen to know what did all of this?”, he gestured around them.

Her pulse quickened and her body tensed at the sound of the voice. Sitting around in a daze was incredibly careless, but her mind had been running off the rails for a while now. She recognized him, though it didn't change the fact she looked ready to bolt. Right away she controlled her breathing as her toes clenched themselves within her boots. Frankly at this moment she could've been interrupted by Angela and would've still nearly jumped out of her skin. Oh how she wished she wasn't sitting right now. Even with the undead mostly gone for the day she overlooked the possible chance of breathing people coming to the cemetery. Inappropriately her mind mentally spat out the phrase of there being nothing to fear but fear itself the moment she saw Nemesis. He made the offhand comment about the tombstone she was sitting on to which she replied: "It's not. Not that I can feel it anyway." And when he asked about the mess left from her latest test run, she tersely answered back. "It's colored powder. It'll wash out when it rains; it's nontoxic and leaves minimal residue." She really wanted to teleport away now. Being in direct contact with strangers was aggravating her paranoid tendencies.

For the love of all that was good in the world, she hoped his next question wouldn't be asking who she was. This was not a good day for social interaction. No longer resting her head between her hands, she was subtly wringing a small crease in her tunic between her fingers. Her gaze was somewhat distant, her focus was all over the place. With dark circles around her eyes and a mildly disheveled appearance she looked mostly harmless, if not obviously off-kilter. The kind who would really like to be left to their own devices, thank you very much. Glancing at the powder residue from failed attempts all around, she muttered to herself. "Next time I'll make it orange…" All the while she was half-hoping and waiting for the man to move on, or a self-perceived cue to take her leave. Nervous eyes flicked to the side when she thought she heard undead groaning in the distance, sitting as a fidgeting wreck. "They're back. Another hour wasted." Sliding off the tombstone like a loose sheet, she stood up and continued wringing her shirt. "I'll be going, then. The place is getting too crowded." Excusing herself was just her going through the motions socially more than anything. 

Something was too familiar about this one, but the vaewolf would have driven himself mad for he didn’t know why. Perhaps she had been seen so many moons ago and it was just a coincidence that they would run into each other in a place like this. She was a quirky one, looking like she was moments away from fleeing like a fidgeting bird when it feels something creeping upon them. He refrained from moving any closer to her and kept the smile on his face. Her reply was a bit strange, but he let it be. His mind was more concerned with what had occurred here with the explosion of color that blanketed the area. “I see, you are some sort of inventor then?” His eyes searched for any body movement, any jerking reactions, and facial changes to see if he could spot a lie somewhere on her. The constant twitching didn’t help matters for him but for the time, he wasn’t sensing anything to be worried about.

“Quite a place to do some testing you picked out, little bird”, he spoke, deciding on calling her that for her nervousness. Still, the slight familiarity was gnawing at his mind- the only time he could feel something remotely close would have been those that he was forced to call his divine kin. He truly didn’t know of them well aside from Angela, and there was one whose face he hadn’t seen with all that armor they bore. But he couldn’t exactly imagine that god and her being the one and the same. His crimson eyes narrowed darkly at her for a moment longer before he turned to take his leave; whoever she was, it wasn’t difficult to see that he had intruded onto something that had nothing to do with him. He only ceased when she referred to “them” coming back. Nemesis looked back from the corner of his eye, “Friends of yours?” The sounds of shuffling feet and light moans brought him to the truth and he laughed. “Fair enough, little bird. The Reaper’s demise must have had them slumber until now.” Projecting his shadow, it stretched and slithered like a snake throughout the cemetery, cutting down some of the stray dead should they get too close

“Were these the things you were testing your devices for?”

"Yes, somewhat." It was hard to think of words when the gnawing desire to flee was preoccupying her thoughts. Thank heavens he didn't come any closer, not that it helped her mental situation. The term of endearment–or endangerment only ratcheted the paranoia bells up a notch. Yes, a graveyard was an odd place to test experiments out. Frankly a secluded laboratory or remote castle would have been the usual spot, but the graveyard was convenient and cost nothing to use. Really she had picked Perditi simply because she assumed it would have low foot traffic from the living, and at the time the undead were unusually absent. "It was supposed to be empty. Supposed to…" Shiloh mumbled. She had only planned to test for a few hours then go back home. As the undead returned to their usual patrol, Nemesis proceeded to obliterate the shambling corpses without even lifting a finger. Ah…another reason to keep her 'mask' on the next time she was called to the obligatory Conclave meeting. Her shadow manipulation was practically nothing compared to that display. 

“Were these the things you were testing your devices for?” He asked, turning to her. "No…not even close." As she had said before, the only things in her exploding canisters were colored powder, nothing magical. The most they'd do is dye the dead in the colors of the rainbow until they came in contact with water. The glass shards would do little to something that was nerve-dead as well. Frankly she wasn't even sure if any of her previous tests today were any good, since she was using them on stationary objects. And for the thing she was planning to use them on…to put things lightly, there wasn't a real-world comparison. This was pure guesswork and adding as much damage-dealing capacity as possible into the smallest usable form. It might not be as sophisticated as some artificer's theoretical experimentation in some grand institute of study, but it worked. After all knowledge was cumulative, and 'testing' was just a more grounded way of phrasing 'grasping at straws in the dark'.